Tag Archives: bush

How can Bikers be “against totalitarian enactments” yet align themselves with the fascist “1%er” stooge who sponsored the most totalitarian act in U.S. history?

MANY AMERICAN BIKERS SUFFER FROM SENSENBRENNER SYNDROME. DO YOU?

Wisconsin’s 9th Congressional District morphed into its 5th in 2003, but since 1979 and for almost a quarter century that district has been represented in Washington DC by the same silver spoon politician: United States Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. This district is the home of almost 700,000 of Wisconsin’s wealthiest residents and two of Harley-Davidson’s primary motorcycle manufacturing facilities – H-D Powertrain Operations in Menomonee Falls, and the H-D Product Development Center in Wauwatosa.

Many Harley riders (including myself) and other Bikers like to think of themselves as defiant examples of personal independence and liberty, and refer to each other as “freedom fighters”. There are many so-called motorcyclists’ rights organizations (MROs) to exploit that, among them being the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF), the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM), A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments (ABATE), and the US Defenders. Here are some representative mission statements:

“The mission of the American Motorcyclist Association is to promote the motorcycling lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling.”

“To continue developing an aggressive, independent national advocate for the advancement of motorcycling and its associated lifestyle which is financially stable and exceeds the needs of motorcycling enthusiasts.”

“ABATE of Wisconsin’s goal is to give the motorcyclists of Wisconsin a strong, united voice with regard to their future, their way of life, their safety, and their legal rights as motorcyclists and citizens.”

In addition to a common membership base and political message, these MROs also share an affinity for Congressman Sensenbrenner, who due to his portly stature is known to some as “Fat Jim”. Here are a couple of their accolades:

“The AMA thanks [Sensenbrenner et al] for protecting the motorcycle lifestyle, and encourages motorcyclists in these representative’s districts to thank them for their support…”

“Sensenbrenner has redefined what it means to go ‘above and beyond’. He has worked tirelessly to protect motorcyclists’ rights on every front at the federal level for over 35 years. ‘Not only are the motorcyclists of Wisconsin in Mr. Sensenbrenner’s debt, every motorcyclist in this country has benefitted from his steadfast support,’ said Jeff Hennie, MRF Vice President Government Relations and Public Affairs.”

So despite the fact the he was an heir to the Kimberly Clark (Kotex) family fortune and born one-percenter – in Occupy Wall Street, not Hells Angels, terms – it certainly sounds like Fat Jim is a champion of democracy and a true defender of the freedoms and liberties cherished so dearly by our two-wheeled cowboys from coast to coast, right?

That’s right, all you riders for justice. The man your MRO leaders claim has been protecting your “rights on every front at the federal level for over 35 years” has actually been decimating them for much of that time. The Patriot Act he sponsored did more damage to what was once your Constitutionally-guaranteed Bill of Rights than any other bill ever signed into law, and he didn’t stop there. He also sponsored the REAL ID Act (HR418) – which turns your state-issued drivers license into a nationwide “homeland security” identity and tracking device – and has been behind a number of other corporate-sponsored Big Brother affronts to personal freedoms, civil liberties and even Internet privacy:

The Sensenbrenner Syndrome I refer to is defined crudely as “befriending those who be f*#king you”. This disease has clearly afflicted a large number of Wild Hogs, and that’s sad. What’s worse is that the epidemic doesn’t end there:

How many fiscal conservatives voted for Bush Era Republicans while they were running up record deficits and wrecking our economy with unsustainable tax cuts and reckless deregulation? How many Koched-up Tea Party Patriots support those very same long-tenured corporate puppets today? And how many anti-war progressives that voted for “Change” in 2008 are willing to admit that their drone-happy Democratic President Bushbamney has expanded rather than shrunk the American War Machine overseas while doing nothing for the people back home than might alienate his Wall Street masters?

Like Judge Napolitano, I ask: Where are the Jeffersonians? And where is the outrage?

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership ‘free trade’ agreement [TPP/TPPA] is a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America, a dream of the 1 percent, [and a realization of George Bush Sr.’s vision of a “New World Order”] that in one blow could: offshore millions of American jobs, free the banksters from oversight, ban ‘Buy America’ policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy, decrease access to medicine, flood the U.S. with unsafe food and products, and empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards.”

“Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. [including foreign subsidiaries of domestic corporations] would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings. The terms run contrary to campaign promises issued by Obama and the Democratic Party during the 2008 campaign.”

“A leaked draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) investment chapter has been published online by Citizens Trade Campaign, the same coalition that first published TPP proposals from the United States on intellectual property, regulatory coherence and drug formularies in late 2011. Draft texts are said to exist for some 26 separate chapters, none of which have ever been officially released by trade negotiators for public review.”

“Despite the White House’s efforts to keep [the] proposed free trade agreement concealed from the public – and even Congress – an excerpt from the TPP leaked Wednesday [6/13/2012] reveals that President Obama is prepared to bow to multinational corporations… According to the leaked excerpt, the Obama administration has been considering TPP provisions that would allow foreign corporations operating within the United States to appeal regulations on the environment and banking that would be forced on American-owned businesses with no chance of reprieve. While the United States could be sanctioned for failing to impose regulations on American-run businesses, multinational corporations are practically encouraged to do as much because the TPP outlines a clear avenue to file an appeal. If one of the eight Pacific nations chooses to do as much, their plea would be heard by an international tribunal that could overrule US law.”

“Trade officials from the U.S. and eight Pacific Rim nations – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam – are in intensive, closed door negotiations to sign [the] Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ‘Free Trade’ Agreement by summer 2012. Every Pacific Rim nation from China and Russia to Indonesia and Mexico could eventually be included. There are draft texts for [the pact’s 26] chapters, most of which have nothing to do with trade, but rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health, environmental, and other policies. The governments won’t release the texts to the public. But 600 U.S. corporate ‘trade advisors’ have full access.”

“Although the TPP has been branded a ‘trade’ agreement, the leaked text of the pact’s Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:

– limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S. boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms;

– extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries;

– establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges; and

– allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms.”

A. “Contact your Senators, Representatives, and state legislators: ask them to demand release of the secret negotiating texts and stop the TPP corporate power tool agenda that slams us 99 percenters.”

B. “Write Pres. Obama: tell him that you loved his State of the Union focus on American manufacturing, but that his blue-print will be destroyed unless he gets his trade negotiators on a new track on TPP. We cannot afford another job-killing, unsafe-import-flooding, democracy-crushing NAFTA-style trade deal.”

…which we correct with this:

C. Re “A” and “B” above, keep in mind that the people you are appealing to are the corporate puppets and guilty parties responsible for the very wrongs you are trying to right, so don’t expect such impotent slacktivism to change anything.

D. The problem is not Obama and the Democrats. The solution is not Romney and the Republicans. The problem is all of the corporate-controlled Democratic AND Republican politicians – including Obama AND Romney. The solution is REVOLUTION.

E. Thomas Jefferson said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It’s that time again…

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results – like voting on false choices in rigged elections with predetermined outcomes.

AMERICANS HAVE THREE CHOICES IN NOVEMBER: BUSHBAMNEY, THIRD-PARTY OR NOBODY

As they’ve done so many times in the past, on Tuesday 6 November 2012 American voters will go to the polls to decide absolutely nothing. At least not at the presidential level, where electing either corporate-controlled Democratic puppet Obama or corporate-controlled Republican puppet Romney will mean a continuation of perpetual wars for profit and oil abroad and continued constitutional erosion and decline into police-state fascism at home:

Of course they supposedly differ on social and other wedge issues the ruling elite contrive, revive and broadcast incessantly through mainstream media to keep people divided and fighting each other rather united and fighting them. But once they get elected, what really changes?

NOT MUCH.

After two disastrous terms with Dubya, Obama was sold to the Sheeple as “Change” incarnate in 2008. But what really changed? Goldman Sachs alum were in charge at the Treasury under Bush; Goldman Sachs alum are in charge at the Treasury now… Wall Street got bailed out while Main Street got sold out under Bush; that continues under Obama, but now we call it a “jobless recovery”… Our Military/Intelligence/Terrorism Industrial Complex had a blank check under Bush. Our Military/Intelligence/Terrorism Industrial Complex has a blank check now… In Iraq, hundreds of thousands died and trillions of dollars were wasted *after* Dubya declared “Mission Accomplished”; the death and destruction continues today, long *after* Obama declared our troops would be “home for the holidays”… Under Bush, we went to war in Afghanistan with Pakistan as our “ally”; under Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama the war has expanded, the situation has worsened, and American bombs and drones are now killing innocent civilians on both sides of the Af-Pak border and around the globe as well… Dubya gave us the USA Patriot Act and AUMF 2001, under which he declared executive authority to waive habeus corpus and hold American citizens in indefinite detention without charge or trial; Obama renewed the Patriot Act and signed NDAA 2012, which codified indefinite detention of American citizens by military as well as civilian authorities… Dubya filled Guantanamo with 9/11 scapegoats; Obama’s complicity guarantees none of them will ever get their day in open court… Dubya and Darth first used armed Predator drones to take out suspected terrorists – or innocent men, women and children asleep in their mud huts – in Af-Pak in 2001; Obama signed HR 658 releasing 30,000 such drones into American skies… Dubya used “free speech zones” to corral and avoid American citizens exercising their First Amendment Rights; Obama signed HR 347, making the exercise of those rights where and how it matters most a felony…

I COULD GO ON, BUT YOU GET THE POINT.

It is said that the Republican Party exists to make the Democratic Party look like a viable alternative to wannabe revolutionaries who don’t really wanna be revolutionaries. But does it? Clearly the Democrats and Republicans have the same core agenda and answer to the same global elite, so voting for the candidates of either merely perpetuates their “two-party tyranny”:

So short of storming the Bastille, what options remain for the few Americans who actually give a damn about something other than sports scores, spoiled celebrities, (un)reality shows, choice-limiting apps for their slave-built iPhones and inconsequential updates to their Fakebook pages? Writing for Global Research, Professor Peter Phillips credits Chris Hedges with this suggestion:

“Don’t waste any more time or energy on the presidential election than it takes to get to your polling station and pull a lever for a third-party candidate – just enough to register your obstruction and defiance – and then get back out onto the street. That is where the question of real power is being decided.”

Others will say “Vote for Nobody!” in alignment with Wally Conger’s Anti-Electorate Manifesto:

“We, the Anti-Electorate, do not believe there is a need for ‘strong leadership’ in government. We are not drawn to ‘intellectual’ authorities and political ‘heroes’. We are not impressed with titles, ranks, and pecking orders – politicians, celebrities, and gurus. We do not struggle for control of organizations, social circles, and government. We do not lobby the State for favors or permission to control those with whom we disagree. Rather, we advocate freedom. By its very nature, the State does not. Exercise your right to say “No” to the warfare – welfare system. Refuse to vote. Then tell your friends why.”

Still others are asking themselves what Thomas Jefferson would do if he were alive to see what a mess we’ve made of things, and these words of his are really making the rounds:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Personally, I’d like to see us get to what I previously called “that point”:

“The traditional Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative, Democrat/Republican dichotomy is a false and failing paradigm propagated by the powers-that-be to perpetuate division. The true political spectrum is not a straight line but a circle: There is a point where Far Left meets Far Right, where Anarchism merges with Libertarianism and these and the rest of our outmoded labels melt away. In that point must we place our hope, for only from that point can we build a better future.”

If we can’t get to “that point”, then storming the Bastille may be the only alternative.